Brumbaugh 
Moral  Training  of  the  Young 


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i  ETHICAL  February,  1907 

Iaddresses 


Vol.  XIV.         No.  6 


AND  ETHICAL  RECORD 


Moral  Training  of  the  Young— Peda- 
gogical Principles  and  Methods 

Martin  G.  Brumbaugh 


I  What  an  Ethical  Culture  Society  is  For 

i  Leslie  Willis  Sprague 


The  Moral  Instruction  Movement  Abroad 


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MAY.— The  Hope  for  the  City.    John  Lovejoy  Elliott. 
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The  Idealist  and  the  Intuitionist.     TTclon   Wodehouse,  Tlie 

University,   Rirmiiiiiham. 
The  Ethics  of  Passion.     Basil  de  Selineourt,  Chipping  Nor- 

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Political  Science  and  Ethics.     James  W.  Garner,  Univei-sity 

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Parental   Rights   and   Public   Education.     James   01i|thaiil, 

London. 
The  Ethical  Problem  in  an  Industrial  Community.    P..  Kiik- 

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MORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG- 
PEDAGOGICAL  PRINCIPLES  AND 
METHODS.* 

By  Martin  G.  Brumbaugh. 

At  the  opening-  of  this  course  of  lectures,  it  was  my 
privilege  to  deliver  an  address  on  the  scope  of  the  prob- 
lem of  moral  training;  to  point  out  the  breadth  of  the 
problem,  and  the  factors  in  the  problem.  That  has  been 
followed  by  the  series  of  lectures  that  you  have  heard  on 
the  several  Saturday  afternoons,  all  of  which  were  the  un- 
folding of  phases  of  that  problem  from  the  historical  side. 

If  we  have  established  the  scope  of  our  problem,  it 
seems  to  me  only  right  that,  as  a  concluding  thought,  we 
should  raise  the  question — What  is  the  process  of  realiza- 
tion in  the  moral  training  of  the  individual?  How  do  we 
bring  the  boy  and  the  girl  through  the  various  steps  that 
lead  at  last  to  the  realization  within  himself  of  the  things 
that  we  think  of  as  belonging  to  the  moral  life  ? 

In  answering  this  question,  I  hope  to  point  out  what 
seems  to  me  to  be,  not  only  the  steps  in  the  process  of 
moral  training,  but  those  steps  in  the  order  in  which  they 
should  be  followed  in  the  training  of  a  child  to  moral  con- 
duct. The  problem  then  is  to  follow  the  following  prin- 
ciples in  order : 

First,   the   prerequisite   for   the   moral   training   of  a 

•Closing  lecture  in  a  Saturday  afternoon  course  on  "The  Moral  Train- 
ing of  the  Young  in  Ancient  and  Modern  Times,"  given  by  different  lec- 
turers under  the  auspices  of  the  Society  for  Ethical  Culture  of  Philadel- 
phia. At  the  time  this  lecture  was  given,  March  26,  1904,  Dr.  Brum- 
baugh was  professor  of  pedagogy  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  He 
now  holds  the  position  of  Superintendent  of  Public  Schools  of  Philadel- 
phia. 

167 

8849.S8 


l68  MORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG. 

child.  Before  fonnal  moral  training  is  begun  with  a 
child,  he  should  be  trained  to  the  fonnation  of  right  judg- 
ments. Before  we  can  ask  him  to  determine  what  is  the 
right  or  the  wrong  in  a  specific  thing,  he  ought  to  have 
his  instrument  of  judgment  trained,  so  that  when  he 
comes  to  apply  it  to  the  solution  of  moral  problems  it  will 
be  an  efifective  agency  in  disposing  of  his  difficulties. 
That  means  that  the  whole  intellectual  discipline  of  the 
mind,  when  rightly  carried  out,  is  the  best  basis  for  the 
moral  training  of  the  child.  "When  rightly  carried  out" 
means  when  the  whole  discipline  of  his  intellect  centers 
in  the  purpose  of  training  him  to  the  formation  of  right 
judgments;  to  be  able  to  take  facts  from  any  field  of 
thought,  and,  holding  them  in  mind,  establish  their  rela- 
tions, and  announce  these  relations  as  they  really  are. 

In  order  to, accomplish  that,  one  must  give  the  child 
multiplied  interests  upon  which  to  exercise  judgment;  for 
he  reaches  the  power  of  forming  right  judgments  only 
by  forming  judgments,  by  having  definite  things  laid  be- 
fore him,  and  reasoning  with  these  things,  until  he  knows 
how  to  use  the  materials  of  thought,  and  draw  from  them 
their  legitimate  conclusions.  Our  whole  public  educa- 
tional system  is  weak  or  strong  in  proportion  to  its  effi- 
ciency in  establishing  this  power  in  the  mind  of  a  child. 
It  stands  opposed,  therefore,  to  some  of  the  things  all  too 
common  in  our  educational  policy ;  and  to  the  extent  that 
these  things  prevail,  they  weaken  the  possibility  of  the 
ultimate  moral  training  of  the  child  by  impairing  imme- 
diately his  ability  to  form  right  judgments. 

The  first  of  these  things  in  our  educational  practice  to 
which  this  law  stands  opposed  is  the  prolonged  presenta- 
tion of  concrete  materials  to  the  child.  There  is  such  a 
thing  as  overdoing  the  shoe-peg,  the  tooth-pick  and  the 
green-pea  experiment  in  education ;  and  there  comes  a 


MORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG.  169 

time  in  the  life  of  the  child  when  it  should  be  taken 
away — utterly  away — from  all  finger  contact  with  things, 
and  be  compelled  to  think  in  symbols ;  and  he  will  never 
arrive  at  the  point  in  his  culture  where  he  can  establish 
right  judgments  until  he  has  lifted  himself  above  the 
plane  of  thinking  in  things. 

I  do  not  mean  that  all  concrete  teaching  is  bad ;  in- 
deed, I  think  teaching  that  is  not  concrete  in  the  elemen- 
tary grades  is  not  good ;  but  the  attempt  to  carry  the 
concrete  materials  of  the  elementary  school  and  the  kin- 
dergarten high  into  the  grades  of  our  public  schools  keeps 
the  child  always  below  his  better  power,  and,  in  the  end, 
interferes  very  materially  with  his  ability  to  establish 
right  judgments.  For  his  judgments,  at  the  last,  are  the 
relations  of  ideas  expressed  in  symbols,  and  not  the  rela- 
tions of  things  expressed  in  extension  or  space. 

The  late  Dr.  Higbee,  who  was,  for  many  years,  the  dis- 
tinguished Superintendent  of  Education  in  this  Common- 
wealth, was  wont  to  express  this  phase  of  our  problem  in 
these  words :  "There  speedily  comes  a  time,  in  the  life  of 
a  child,  when  we  should  un-sense  him,  bring  him  away 
from  immediate  contact  with  things,  and  throw  him  back 
upon  himself,  to  find  truth  in  the  symbols  of  his  own 
soul." 

It  stands  opposed,  in  the  second  place,  to  excessive 
memory  efiforts,  to  that  long  series  of  efiforts  in  home 
and  school  that  think  they  accomplish  much  when  the 
child,  by  reason  of  them,  is  able,  in  his  memory,  to  carry 
large  orders  of  facts  about  which  he  knows  absolutely 
nothing,  beyond  the  fact  that  he  knows  how  to  repeat 
them  in  the  order  in  which  the}-  were  taught  to  him.  The 
memorizing  of  long  and  senseless  categories  of  raw  ma- 
terials— it  may  be — ^but  which  never  get  beyond  the  mere 
memorv  stage  of  the  child's  mind,  stands  sadlv  in  the  way 


I/O  MORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG. 

of  the  serious  cultivation  of  the  power  of  correct  judg- 
ment in  his  mind.  The  function  of  the  memor\'  is  not  to 
carry  these  things,  it  is  to  carry  the  products  of  the  judg- 
ment when  once  they  have  been  analyzed  and  expressed ; 
and  the  vitahty  of  the  individual's  memor}'  is  to  be  meas- 
ured by  its  ability  to  put  back  into  judgment  that  which, 
before  it  reached  the  memory,  was  refined  in  the  judg- 
ment. Things  understood  are  the  legitimate  products  to 
be  placed  in  the  memory. 

In  the  third  place,  it  stands  opposed  to  the  hasty  gener- 
alization which  leads  the  mind  of  the  child,  and  of  the 
childish  adult,  to  infer  a  law  upon  too  meagre  premises, 
to  think  that  a  great  truth  has  been  discovered  when  only 
a  few  facts  have  been  apprehended. 

This  reminds  me  of  the  story  of  the  French  doctor  who 
had  a  patient  sick  with  typhoid  fever,  and  after  all 
the  remedies  that  he  knew  had  been  tried  without  avail, 
he  finally,  in  distress,  gave  the  patient  chicken  broth,  and 
the  man  got  well.  Then  the  French  doctor  was  delighted, 
and  he  announced  through  the  medical  journals  that 
chicken  broth  would  cure  typhoid  fever.  The  next  pa- 
tient that  he  had  was  an  Englishman,  and  he  applied 
the  remedy,  but  the  Englishman  died.  Then  he  revised 
his  generalization,  and  said  that  whereas  chicken  broth 
would  cure  a  Frenchman  who  was  ill  with  typhoid  fever, 
it  was  fatal  to  an  Englishman ! 

Children  are  making  that  sort  of  generalizations  all  the 
while,  and  they  lead  to  conclusions  that  are  not  war- 
ranted by  the  facts  at  hand,  and  that  impair  the  power  of 
forming  correct  judginents,  which  are  only  the  legitimate 
expression  of  exactly  what  the  facts  that  are  in  the  mind 
convey. 

It  stands  opposed,  in  the  fourth  place,  to  reasoning  by 
analogy,  or  inference,lhat  most  subtle  and  pernicious  field 


MORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG.  I/I 

of  thought  which,  basing  itself  upon  some  figure  of 
speech,  places  over  into  one  order  of  truth  what  it  sees  in 
another,  on  the  basis  of  remote  or  fanciful  resemblance. 
To  be  sure,  before  we  have  philosophy,  we  have  my- 
thology ;  before  we  have  science,  we  have  the  myth — and 
all  through  the  history  of  the  race  reasoning  by  analogy 
has  set  the  standard  for  primitive  minds,  and  not  at  all 
the  standard  for  mature  minds  and  civilized  experiences. 
Now,  the  child,  as  he  comes  to  the  school,  is  very  prone 
to  make  inferences  that  are  not  warranted  by  the  facts; 
and,  if  he  is  to  be  trained  ultimately  into  right  judg- 
ments, he  must  be  cautioned  against  forming  any  such 
analogous  relations  as  these.  Here,  then,  is  the  general 
process  of  intellectual  culture,  which  results  in  establish- 
ing in  the  mind  of  the  pupil  the  power  to  judge  facts  cor- 
rectly. 

The  second  thing  to  which  I  wish  to  invite  your  atten- 
tion, in  the  preparation  of  a  child  for  specific  moral  guid- 
ance, is  this  law,  that  his  conduct  is  to  be  regulated  in  ac- 
cordance with  moral  ideas  and  the  sentiment  of  duty. 
The  child,  at  the  beginning  of  his  life,  is  not  moral,  nor 
yet  immoral — he  is  unmoral ;  he  has  not  yet  established  a 
will  that  determines  conduct,  and  therefore  he  has  not  yet 
taken  upon  himself  the  taint  of  the  immoral  nor  the  virtue 
of  the  moral  quality.  He  stands  before  all  activity  with- 
out the  power  to  enter  upon  it ;  and,  in  that  early  stage 
of  his  life,  by  the  presence  of  the  teacher  and  the  parent, 
there  must  be  formally  set  in  the  life  of  the  child  con- 
duct in  harmony  with  right  ideals,  and  with  the  sen- 
timent of  duty.  Long  before  the  child  knows  why,  he 
must  do  things.  The  child  must  do  things  long  before 
he  can  give  a  reason  for  the  thing  that  he  does.  He  must 
do  the  things  because  somebody  else  knows  that  is  wise; 
and  so  the  child  acquires  the  habit  of  moral  action,  and  es- 


1/2  ^[ORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG. 

tablishes  a  formal  code  of  moral  deeds  before  his  own 
mind  has  reached  the  point  of  growth  whereby  he  can 
either  approve  or  deny  the  validity  of  these  things. 

The  child  comes  to  school  every  morning  at  nine 
o'clock,  not  because  he  has  reasoned  out  within  himself 
the  virtue  of  being  there  at  nine  o'clock,  but  because  the 
moral  order  in  the  school  and  in  the  home  has  estab- 
lished conduct  in  confonnity  therewith.  The  child  must 
sit  in  school  quiet  and  erect  and  respectful  and  obedi- 
ent long  before  he  knows  the  value  of  these  things.  He 
does  it  in  obedience  to  a  law  imposed  upon  him  by  the 
school  and  home  for  his  good ;  so  that  his  conduct  estab- 
lishes through  habit  a  conformity  to  a  code  of  moral  deeds 
before  he  has  reasoned  out  for  himself  what  moral  deeds 
are.  And  there  are  some  people  much  older  than  children 
who  still  act  under  the  guidance  of  a  formal  morality 
imposed  upon  them  from  without,  and  wdio  have  not  yet 
reached  the  stage  in  their  development  in  which  a  real 
moral  soul  from  within  guides  their  conduct. 

I  think  most  of  us  are  just  a  little  different  from  what 
we  w'ould  be  because  of  the  formal  quality  of  the  life 
about  us,  and  our  desire  to  confomi  to  it;  and  yet,  if  we 
were  to  vote  in  our  souls  we  would  vote  against  confor- 
mation to  those  principles.  One  of  the  reasons  why  we 
like  to  go  off  during  the  summer  season  into  the  woods, 
is,  as  we  say,  to  be  natural  once  again ;  that  is,  to  throw 
off  these  formal  restraints,  and  be  our  own  guide — yacht, 
fish,  if  we  want  to ;  take  the  collar  from  our  necks  and 
throw  it  to  the  winds,  if  we  want  to;  and  do  other  things 
which  in  the  social  order  are  not  considered  good  form, 
the  individual  who  practices  them  being  ostracized  by 
society.  So  much  for  the  formal  and  intellectual  prere- 
quisites of  this  process. 

Let  us  now  take  up  the  constructive  side  of  the  prob- 


MORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG.  173 

lem.  Under  that,  first  of  all,  it  seems  to  me,  we  should 
instruct  the  mind  of  the  child  in  moral  ideas  and  their 
spiritual  significance ;  that  is  to  say,  we  should  tell  what 
these  ideas  are,  and  what  they  stand  for  on  the  spiritual 
side.  I  prefer  to  put  the  interpretation  of  the  idea  on  the 
spiritual  side,  rather  than  upon  any  other  side,  because  I 
want  the  child  that  acquires  a  moral  idea  to  see  the  value 
of  that  on  its  best  side,  in  its  relation  to  religious  truth, 
and  the  higher  development  of  his  soul,  rather  than  to  see 
these  relations  to  his  services  to  mankind  in  the  market 
and  in  the  counting-house. 

So  the  first  thing  here  is  to  teach  the  child  clearly  what 
a  moral  idea  is — what  we  mean  by  truthfulness ;  what  we 
mean  by  kindness ;  what  we  mean  by  honor ;  what  we 
mean  by  trustworthiness  ;  what  we  mean  by  conscientious- 
ness, or  by  any  other  of  the  dozen  or  more  things  which 
enter  into  the  complex  thing  that  we  call  the  moral  self. 

After  we  have  taught  what  that  thing  is,  the  next  step 
is  to  show  to  the  child  its  value,  that  is  to  say,  its  signifi- 
cance, so  that  there  comes  to  him,  in  the  appreciation  of 
the  idea  itself,  the  reinforcement  of  its  great  value  to 
him  in  his  life.  When  we  teach  a  boy  mathematics,  and 
come  to  some  such  problem  as  percentage  in  the  study  of 
arithmetic,  we  always  first  define  the  temi,  and  then 
tell  him  how  important  it  is  that  he  should  understand 
percentage  because  of  the  great  value  of  its  applications  to 
him  in  his  subsequent  business  career.  We  tell  him  how 
he  will  be  able  to  compute  the  interest  on  money ;  how  he 
will  be  able  to  compute  discount ;  how  he  will  be  able  to 
form  a  compound  or  complex  partnership,  and,  putting 
in  various  sums  from  different  sources,  at  the  end  make 
an  equitable  and  just  distribution  of  the  profits  or  right 
adjustment  of  the  losses,  and  so  we  point  out  the  specific 
value  of  that  study  to  him ;  and  he  takes  all  the  more  in- 


1/4  MORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG. 

terest  in  the  study  of  percentage  now  that  he  knows  that 
it  has  a  large  value  to  him  in  life. 

I  think  we  have  not  always,  with  the  same  degree  of 
skill  and  patience,  told  our  pupils  in  the  schools  and  our 
children  in  the  home  the  real  significance  of  these  moral 
ideas  in  their  lives. 

Then,  in  the  third  place,  when  we  have  once  established 
the  idea,  and  impressed  its  value  upon  the  mind  of  the 
child,  the  problem  is  to  secure  from  the  child  the  applica- 
tion of  these  principles  to  specific  acts — a  creed-conduct 
— and  this  is  the  most  difficult  thing  in  the  whole  process. 
Most  of  our  children  know,  in  general,  what  are  the  right 
and  what  are  the  wrong  thiiigs ;  but  when  we  ask  them  to 
put  the  test  of  these  laws  to  the  interpretation  of  a  spe- 
cific act,  at  once  there  is  the  greatest  diversity  of  opinion, 
and  the  greatest  failure.  Let  me  illustrate  that  very 
briefly  to  you. 

A  boy  one  morning  was  called  by  his  mother.  He  got 
up  promptly,  dressed  himself,  and  came  down  to  the 
breakfast  table  on  time.  ( How  do  you  score  that  for  the 
boy?  For  him,  or  against  him,  so  far?)  At  the  break- 
fast table  this  boy  refused  to  eat  the  food  that  was  prepared 
for  the  other  members  of  the  family,  and,  instead  of  that, 
he  ate  five  shredded-wheat  biscuits.  (How  do  you  put 
that  down  for  your  boy — for  him  or  against  him?  Now 
you  are  not  all  unanimous  on  that  problem;  you  cannot 
apply  your  moral  code  to  a  question  of  five  shredded- 
wheat  biscuits.)  And  while  the  boy  is  at  the  breakfast 
table,  maybe  while  the  boy  is  eating  his  meal,  his  mother 
says  to  him,  "When  you  are  through  with  the  breakfast, 
I  want  you  to  go  on  an  errand  before  you  go  to  school." 
He  understands  her  all  right,  and,  when  the  meal  is  over, 
puts  on  his  cap,  and  goes  out  and  plays  until  nine  o'clock. 
At  exactly  nine  o'clock  he  is  at  school,  lined  up  with  the 


MORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG.  I75 

Other  saints  ready  to  go  into  the  school  and  take  up  its 
duties.  During  all  the  morning  session,  until  noon,  he  be- 
haves in  school  as  a  boy  should  behave,  and  performs 
every  task  required  of  him  by  the  teacher.  When  school 
is  over  he  goes  home  for  his  luncheon.  His  mother  says 
to  him,  "Why  did  you  not  go  on  that  errand  for  me  this 
morning?"  and  the  boy  says,  "I  forgot;"  and  after 
luncheon  he  returns  to  school.  That  afternoon,  as  a  group 
of  children  were  passing  the  seat  upon  which  he  sat,  in 
some  manner  his  foot  slipped  out  and  tripped  another 
boy,  and  the  boy  fell  in  the  aisle.  The  teacher  saw  it,  and 
said,  "Come  here !"  and  he  came.  She  said,  "Why  did  you 
do  that?"  and  he  said,  "It  was  an  accident."  She  said, 
"Sit  over  there,  and  I  will  see  you  after  school."  When 
the  other  scholars  had  gone  home,  the  teacher  and  this 
boy  had  an  interview,  which  lasted  fifteen  minutes.  It 
does  not  matter  what  was  said  or  done — it  is  over,  and  the 
boy  goes  straight  home.  His  mother  says,  "You  are  late 
this  evening."  "Yes,"  he  says,  "I  was  talking  with  a 
friend,"    What  is  your  opinion  of  that  boy? 

Take  each  act  which  has  happened  that  day,  and  set 
your  moral  law  upon  it,  and  tell  me  whether  I  do  not 
speak  the  truth  when  I  say  that  one  of  the  very  hardest 
problems  with  which  we  have  to  deal,  in  the  process  of 
the  moral  training  of  a  child,  is  to  teach  him  rightly  to 
apply  the  law  that  he  knows  to  the  specific  acts  that  come 
under  his  daily  observation. 

We  have  not  nearly  enough  training  in  our  schools  just 
on  that  point ;  we  seem  to  be  content  when  we  have  taught 
the  law,  and  received  the  answer  back,  when  we  ought 
not  at  all  to  be  content  until  the  child  can  interpret  the 
law  adequately  in  terms  of  conduct.  And  if  there  be  any 
part  of  the  whole  moral  process  in  the  school  that  has 
great  significance,  it  is  that  part  of  it  which  gives  the 


1/6  MORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG. 

child,  through  exercise  upon  specific  cases  hke  that,  the 
power  at  the  last  to  weigh  the  complex  acts  of  a  day's  life 
or  an  hour's  career,  and  form  a  proper  judgment  upon 
them. 

The  discipline  of  the  home  and  the  school  is  a  disci- 
pline of  caprice,  and  the  child  is  punished  to-day  for  that 
which  is  let  go  by  unnoticed  the  day  before,  and  much  of 
the  severity  or  the  leniency  of  the  punishment  at  any 
given  time  is  determined  by  the  condition  of  the  stomach 
and  the  liver  of  the  teacher  or  the  parent  at  a  given  mo- 
ment. It  is  the  law  dishonored,  and  caprice  exalted  into 
a  code. 

Had  I  time,  I  should  like  to  give  you  further  stories, 
that  I  think  might  possibly  puzzle  you,  large  as  you  are, 
and  experienced  as  you  are,  in  applying  your  moral  law  to 
concrete  problems  properly. 

Now  that  we  have  once  accomplished  this  quality  in  the 
moral  process,  the  next  thing  is  the  directing  of  the  per- 
sonal experience  of  the  individual  in  acting  out  his  moral 
ideas,  in  doing  them,  for  it  is  only  when  he  does  them  that 
he  learns  the  virtue  there  is  in  them. 

There  was  once  a  selfish  boy  in  a  group  of  thirteen, 
who,  when  fruit  was  served  to  the  group,  always  reached 
out,  and  took  the  largest  apple  or  the  largest  banana, — 
and  selfishness  is  always  immoral.  And  a  wise  teacher 
said  to  herself,  I  must  break  that  habit,  and  establish  un- 
selfishness in  the  heart  of  that  child.  So  she  said  to  the 
child,  "When  you  pass  the  fruit  around  to  the  other  chil- 
dren, help  yourself  last."  And  he  said  he  would.  And, 
behold,  when  he  had  passed  around  the  dish  to  the  twelve 
children,  the  last  of  the  twelve  took  the  last  of  the  pieces 
of  fruit,  and  the  selfish  child  had  an  empty  dish  from 
which  to  help  himself.  He  cried  the  first  time,  but  the 
second  time  he  saw  the  force  of  the  teacher's  wisdom,  and 


MORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG.  1/7 

the  actual  truth  is  that  there  came  a  time  speedily  when 
that  boy  delighted  in  passing  the  fruit,  and  seeing  others 
happy,  even  when  he  himself  did  not  receive  fruit — and 
that  is  a  high  moral  state  for  a  man  or  a  boy  to  achieve 
in  this  world. 

In  some  way  we  must  give  the  child  the  opportunity  to 
do  the  things  that  bring  to  him  the  sense  in  his  con- 
science of  approval  for  the  act  that  is  right,  and  when  we 
have  done  that,  we  can  reinforce  the  value  of  this  per- 
sonal experience  by  presenting  to  him  concrete  cases  of 
worthy  action  performed  by  others — preferably  by  others 
of  his  own  age — so  that  he  knows  that  this  thing  is  within 
the  range  of  his  own  attainment,  and  is  the  actual  achieve- 
ment of  one  no  better  able  to  achieve  than  himself. 

In  Holland,  in  the  public  schools,  the  histor}-  books 
for  the  children  are  all  so  written  that  a  child  of  the  grade 
in  which  the  book  is  used  tells  to  the  children  in  the  pub- 
lic schools  the  story  of  Holland's  glory.  There  is  no  ma- 
ture mind  interpreting  great  civic  processes,  but  a  little 
child  in  the  book  stands  out  and  tells  the  children,  in  the 
language  of  the  book,  the  story  of  Holland's  glory.  And 
because  it  is  the  language  of  a  child  to  the  hearts  of 
children,  it  stimulates  them  as  perhaps  a  more  mature  ex- 
perience could  not  stimulate  them. 

In  other  words,  next  to  the  actual  doing  of  the  moral 
thing  is  the  story  in  which  moral  deeds  are  described. 
The  value  of  the  story  is  next  in  value  to  the  personal 
experience.  For  that  reason  biography  is  of  tremendous 
value  in  the  training  of  the  moral  self.  If  I  wish  to  teach 
a  child  that  has  no  opportunity  to  understand  in  his  own 
experience  a  certain  moral  quality,  let  me  select  for  him, 
not  a  law  relating  to  that  moral  quality,  but  a  very  real, 
full  story,  in  which  that  quality  is  acted  out  by  another 
person  of  his  own  age  and  maturity.  A  story  that  will 
illustrate  this  may  lead  you  to  see  my  point,  and  believe  it. 


1/8  MORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG. 

Some  years  ago,  in  the  city  of  Edinburgh  in  Scotland, 
there  was  a  Christmas  present  given  out  to  the  poor  chil- 
dren of  the  city  by  the  Christian  charity  of  the  city ;  and 
on  Christmas  Eve  the  little  children  lined  up  in  a  row  to 
receive  their  presents.  Many  of  them  were  poor,  and 
half-clothed,  some  bare-footed  and  bare-legged.  They 
stood  in  a  line  in  the  twilight  on  the  icy  pavements  of  the 
city.  In  the  line  was  a  little  bare-footed  girl,  whose  feet, 
as  they  pressed  the  icy  pavement,  were  almost  frozen. 
She  would  raise  one  foot  under  her  meagre  skirts  and 
wann  it  a  bit,  standing  on  the  other  foot  meanwhile. 
Then  she  would  change  positions,  and  in  that  way  she 
tried  to  protect  herself  from  the  freezing  cold.  Next  to 
her  in  the  line  was  a  boy,  bare-footed  like  herself,  but 
wearing  on  his  head  a  woolen  cap.  When  he  saw  the 
suffering  of  the  little  girl,  he  took  his  cap  from  his  head, 
laid  it  down  on  the  city  street,  and  said  to  her,  "You  may 
stand  on  that." 

Next  to  taking  one's  cap,  and  putting  it  under  the  foot 
of  a  suffering  child,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  story  would 
teach  the  moral  and  enforce  the  quality  for  those  that 
hear  it. 

When  a  story  is  presented,  its  value  is  to  be  measured 
by  its  concrete  quality,  which  is  the  quality  in  the  story 
that  appeals  to  the  emotional  life,  that  nourishes  the  feel- 
ings of  the  child.  And  so,  after  the  story,  the  next  step 
is  to  reinforce  the  feeling  quality  of  the  story  by  the 
poem,  which  is  itself  full  of  concrete  materials,  but 
which  strengthens  the  quality  of  the  story  because  of  its 
rhythm — the  rhythm  adding  to  the  emotional  phase  of  the 
story — and  then,  as  a  last  expression  of  that,  to  put  the 
rhythmic  emotional  material  into  a  song,  and  sing  it.  The 
order  is — tell  it,  read  it,  sing  it.  When  you  have  done 
that  with  it,  you  have  pretty  well  defined  it  in  the  moral 
atmosphere  of  the  child's  mind. 


MORAL  TRAINING  OF  THE  YOUNG.  1 79 

When  all  of  this  has  been  done,  beginning  with  the 
purely  intellectual  training  that  leads  to  correct  judg- 
ments, and  the  establishment  of  formal  morality  by  the 
exercise  of  force  and  guidance  from  without;  when  we 
have  informed  the  mind  of  the  child  as  to  what  moral 
truth  is,  and  have  taught  him  how^  to  interpret  that — in 
a  law  first  of  all,  and  in  the  concrete  cases  in  the  second 
place — when  we  have  put  the  premium  of  emotional  ap- 
peal upon  the  child  to  do  that  thing,  there  remains  one 
additional  thing,  the  summing  up  of  all  this  round  of 
disciplines  into  the  law,  or  the  maxim  or  the  proverb, 
which  stands  in  the  mind  of  the  child  as  a  sign  of  all  that 
through  which  the  mind  has  passed,  and  which  is  ade- 
quately and  fairly  represented  by  the  maxim  or  the  law. 

You  see,  therefore,  that  in  this  process,  that  with  which 
we  usually  begin,  the  moral  training  of  the  child,  is  that 
which  comes  the  last.  Here  again  is  the  law,  'The  first 
shall  be  last,  and  the  last  shall  be  first."  What  has  been 
perhaps,  more  than  any  other  thing,  the  cause  of  so  im- 
perfect results  in  the  moral  training  of  our  children,  is 
that  we  have  laid  the  law  before  them  at  the  outset,  and 
put  no  premium  or  inducement  into  the  life  of  the  child 
to  realize  the  law.  So  he  committed  it  to  memory,  and 
repeated  it  when  he  was  asked  to  do  so,  and  violated  it  all 
the  time,  because  he  never  learned  what  it  meant  in 
terms  of  conduct  or  in  terms  of  feeling. 

If  we  want  to  do  the  right  thing  with  all  the  material 
that  we  have  gathered  here  from  week  to  week  in  this 
course  of  lectures,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  can  reduce  it 
to  the  order  I  have  indicated  this  afternoon,  and  at  the 
very  last,  as  the  crown  of  the  whole  moral  activity,  set 
the  law,  and  not  at  the  beginning. 

Just  one  thing  more,  which  I  think  should  be  said  at 
this  stage  of  the  matter.     All  moral  training,  just  as  all 


l8o  MORAL    TRAINING    OF    THE    YOUJSTG. 

intellectual  training,  has  its  right  to  be,  not  because  of 
any  results  that  are  achieved  in  the  mind  of  the  individual 
that  pursues  intellectual  studies  or  moral  studies,  but  be- 
cause of  the  service  which  that  knowledge  compels  the  in- 
dividual to  render  to  his  fellowmen. 

To  know  one's  duty,  and  not  to  do  it,  is  not  only  im- 
moral within  itself,  but  it  is  a  radical  hindrance  to  the 
working  out  of  the  well-being  of  our  fellow-men.  I  have 
no  business  to  know  moral  law  unless  I  honor  my  knowl- 
edge of  that  law  by  service  to  those  about  me  ;  and  the  very 
virtue  of  a  moral  soul  is  to  be  measured  in  terms  of  his 
service  to  those  about  him,  and  the  depth  of  that  service, 
and  the  breadth  of  that  service,  and  the  quality  of  that 
service.  All  is  to  be  interpreted  by  the  character  of  the 
service  that  we  render,  not  by  the  quality  of  the  theory 
that  we  hold. 

There  are  some  people  who  think  they  do  many  good 
things.  They  do  them  because  they  wish  better  things  to 
come  back  to  themselves.  Their  service  is  not  unselfish, 
and  it  is  not  moral.  It  is  when  we  do  a  thing  because  we 
dare  not,  from  our  own  self,  refuse  to  do  it,  and  do  it 
without  a  thought  of  the  morrow  and  the  moral,  that  our 
service  begins  to  take  on  the  high  quality  of  moral 
heroism. 


WHAT  AN   ETHICAL   CULTURE 
SOCIETY   IS   FOR.- 

By  Leslie  Willis  Sprague. 

In  trying  to  answer  the  question,  what  an  Ethical  So- 
ciety is  for,  you  will  perhaps  pardon  me  a  personal  word 
by  way  of  preface,  since  this  is  my  first  address  upon  an 
Ethical  Culture  platform,  after  formally  associating  my- 
self with  the  movement.  Since  I  have  been  old  enough 
to  look  seriously  upon  the  problems  of  personal  and  so- 
cial life,  I  have  been  greatly  impressed  with  the  Ethical 
Culture  Movement;  and  as  my  contact  and  experience 
have  broadened,  I  have  come  more  and  more  to  feel  the 
imperative  need  in  modern  civilization  of  such  a  move- 
ment. And  this,  first  of  all,  because  of  the  platform 
which  is  secured  by  an  Ethical  Society,  a  platform  upon 
which  all  classes  of  people,  whatever  their  affiliations 
may  have  been  or  are,  may  meet — that  broad  platform 
of  human  brotherhood,  where  people  of  diverse  thoughts, 
ideas  and  impulses,  may  meet  to  help  each  other  in  the 
endeavor  to  understand  the  meaning  of  life,  and  to  dis- 
cover the  right  attitude  towards  their  fellows,  and  to- 
wards the  problems  of  modem  civilization.  I  have  all 
along  been  specially  impressed  by  the  fact  that  Ethical 
Culture  brings  ethics  to  the  forefront,  putting  the  neces- 
sities of  the  ethical  life  as  the  pre-eminent  necessities 
and  placing  ethics  before  and  above  all  other  considera- 
tions.    Not  simply  morality,  but  ethics.     Morality  be- 

*An  address  delivered  before  the  Philadelphia  Ethical  Society, 
Sunday,  October  23,  1904. 

i8i 


lS2        WHAT  AN-  ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR. 

longs  to  the  outward  conventional  relationships  of  men 
and  women.  Morals  means  an  outward  conformity  to  the 
ways  of  good  living  that  have  been  developed  in  the  past ; 
whereas  ethics,  as  the  derivation  of  the  word  implies,  con- 
notes rather  the  inner  attitude  of  man  towards  the  prob- 
lem of  his  being,  the  right  adjustment  in  the  inner  life  as 
well  as  in  the  outer  conduct  of  life,  the  discovery  of  prin- 
ciples upon  which  the  moral  life  itself  is  to  be  construct- 
ed. I  take  it  to  be  important  that  ethics  should  be  brought 
increasingly  to  the  forefront,  in  the  midst  of  a  world- 
change  that  is  going  on  in  the  thinking  of  man.  Sweep- 
ing changes  are  taking  place  in  the  religious  and  philo- 
sophical thought  of  the  world,  and  it  is  imperative  that 
ethical  interests  should  be  separated  from  either  theolo- 
gical or  philosophical  theorizing,  in  order  that  the  ethical 
life  may  not  go  down,  as  is  all  too  common  in  the  mod- 
ern world,  with  the  disintegration  of  the  philosophical  or 
theological  bases  upon  which  the  good  life  has  hereto- 
fore rested.  This  I  think  to  be  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant interests  of  the  Ethical  Society  and  of  the  modem 
world ;  the  more  so  considering  the  fact  that  the  ten- 
dency towards  material  science,  economic  and  social  em- 
phasis, and  the  larger  and  larger  human  contact  are  all 
tending  increasingly  to  break  up  the  old  sanctions,  the 
older  philosophical  and  theological  bases  upon  which  eth- 
ics has  heretofore  rested,  and  to  leave  the  conscience  of 
men  unanchored.  Evidence  we  find  on  all  hands  of  the 
breaking  up  of  the  sanctions  of  the  moral  life,  not  onlv 
in  the  individual  but  in  the  community,  and  of  the  rapid 
spread,  through  the  last  half  century,  of  thought  that 
expresses  itself  in  free  love,  frequent  divorces,  the  break- 
ing up  of  the  older  constraints,  the  lessening  bonds  of 
duty  between  employer  and  employe,  the  piling  up  of  for- 
tunes by   political   manipulation,   and   the   cynical   smile 


WHAT  AN  ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR.         183 

which  poHtical  corruption  brings  to  the  faces  of  those  who 
hear  it  mentioned, — the  indifiference  of  modern  society 
towards  those  fundamental  ethical  impulses  which  the 
past  recognized,  but  which  to-day  seem  to  be  further 
and  further  from  having  their  due  command  over  our 
life. 

I  have  been  interested  in  the  Ethical  Society,  not  only 
on  account  of  the  basis  it  offers,  but  the  common  meeting 
ground  which  it  gives  to  those  of  different  beliefs,  not 
only  because  it  brings  ethics  thus  to  the  front,  but  because 
the  Ethical  Society  as  an  association  represents  the  ear- 
nest endeavor  on  the  part  of  individuals  to  combine  on 
behalf  of  the  interests  that  are  most  precious  and  impera- 
tive. And  I  take  it  that  these  interests  which  have  been 
at  work  in  the  organization  and  that  have  drawn  me  per- 
sonally to  a  closer  association  with  the  Ethical  move- 
ment, are  those  which  have  animated  the  efforts  of  your 
leaders,  here  and  elsewhere.  An  Ethical  Society  is  not 
primarily  a  protest  against  other  religious  organizations. 
It  is  not  born  of  any  failure  to  appreciate  the  enormous 
service  rendered  to  the  world  by  every  institution  that  in 
any  way  seeks  to  conserve  the  ethical  interests  of  hu- 
manity. There  are  few  associated  with  the  Ethical  move- 
ment, I  take  it,  who  do  not  realize  the  debt  of  the  world 
to  every  phase  of  organized  religion,  every  great  system 
which  has  given  its  great  ethical  enunciations  and  exer- 
cised an  influence  towards  a  larger  and  nobler  relation- 
ship of  men  and  men.  The  Ethical  Culture  movement 
represents  an  endeavor  to  gather  together  the  best  in- 
fluences and  teachings,  the  highest  reaches  of  thought 
and  imagination  which  the  world  has  anywhere  and  every- 
where expressed,  in  order  that  they  may  be  brought  to  a 
focus  upon  the  conditions  of  our  own  time  and  the  prob- 
lems of  our  personal  lives.    And  it  is  significant  that  there 


184        WHAT  AX   ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR. 

should  at  last  be  in  the  world  one  platform  upon  which  the 
various  ethical  interests  of  all  religious  teachings  may  be 
represented  and  all  placed  together  in  that  larger  synthe- 
sis for  which  the  world  is  waiting. 

But  the  Ethical  Society  is  something  more  than  a  mere 
platform  for  the  free  expression  of  opinion  concerning 
life,  ethics  and  religion.  Because  it  is  an  ethical  society 
it  is  necessarily  an  association  of  people — an  organiza- 
tion— in  behalf  of  high  and  world-wide  ends.  You  may 
think  that  all  these  various  interests  might  be  realized 
in  the  individual  life,  separate  and  alone;  that  ethics  is 
the  supreme  effort  of  every  individual  when  he  comes  to 
his  right  awakening,  however  separate  and  aloof  he  may 
be  from  his  fellows.  But  ethics  is  not  merely  a  question 
of  individual  life.  It  requires  an  association  of  people 
who  are  united  for  this  great  common  aim.  And  this 
thought  of  organization  brings  us  to  one  of  the  most  im- 
posing characteristics  of  the  modern  world.  We  see  about 
us  everywhere  a  tendency  towards  closer,  vaster  organi- 
zation; a  tendency  which  in  the  inner  life  is  met  by  a 
resistance  of  organized  endeavor.  There  is  a  tendency 
towards  larger  and  larger  combination  of  peoples.  We 
have  evidence  in  this  country  of  the  passing  away  of  State 
rights  and  the  larger  emphasis  upon  the  rights  of  the 
Federal  Government.  Federal  interests  are  more  and 
more  absorbed  in  the  larger  interests  of  international  re- 
lationship, so  that  the  political  issues  of  the  day  are  not 
the  issues  of  internal  administration  but  of  foreign  af- 
fairs. We  have  seen  the  tendency  of  our  time  towards 
extending  the  international  ideals.  Such  meetings  as 
those  of  the  Peace  Conference  are  indicative  of  a  grow- 
ing disposition  to  combine,  on  the  important  questions  of 
international  ethics,  into  one  great  world  organization; 
and  the  power  of  the  international  arbitration  bureaus 


WHAT  AN  ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR.         185 

and  international  treaties,  increasingly  inclusive  of  even 
minor  affairs,  is  a  further  indication  of  this  tendency 
towards  world  organization.  We  see  the  same  tendency 
towards  organization  in  business  life :  the  combinations 
of  capital  in  trusts,  of  manufacturers,  of  labor  unions 
and  the  federation  of  labor  interests.  The  same  tendency 
is  going  on  even  in  the  educational  life  of  the  country, 
and  the  larger  institutions  are  taking  the  smaller  ones  un- 
der their  control.  Our  city  schools  are  dominated  by  the 
policy  of  the  universities.  The  secondary  schools  are 
made  to  be  preparatory  for  the  higher  educational  insti- 
tutions. All  through  the  external  world  this  tendency  to- 
wards organization  and  closer  association  is  robbing  man 
of  much  of  his  independence,  so  that  he  cannot  work 
alone,  can  scarcely  think  alone,  and  cannot  fully  live  ex- 
cept in  harmonious  relation  with  society. 

With  this  surrender  in  the  external  affairs  of  life,  men 
have  been  driven  to  assert  the  claims  of  individual  life  in 
matters  of  ethical  experience.  We  have  heard  a  good 
deal  lately  concerning  why  men  do  not  go  to  church. 
This  discussion  has  filled  the  pulpit  and  press  and  maga- 
zine. One  reason,  and  perhaps  the  pre-eminent  reason, 
why  men  do  not  go  to  church,  is  that  men  wish  to  reserve 
one  little  province  of  life  in  which  they  shall  be  free  and 
independent.  Many  of  the  people  who  do  go  to 
church  and  attend  faithfully  upon  the  ministrations  of 
religion  will  not  associate  themselves  with  the  organiza- 
tions of  religion,  because  they  cannot  surrender  this  last 
province  of  individual  liberty,  the  liberty  of  the  individual 
life  in  matters  of  faith  and  ideals.  And  yet,  if  you  will 
look  closely  at  the  matter,  you  will  discover  that  there  is 
no  province  in  which  association  is  so  imperative  as  in  the 
innermost  experience  of  the  individual.  We  can  much 
more  readilv   work  alone,  even  amidst  combinations  of 


l86        WHAT  AN  ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR. 

capital  and  labor,  than  we  can  carry  on  the  principal  work 
of  our  personal  lives  without  the  influence  and  sugges- 
tion of  others.  Without  association  for  moral  and  re- 
ligious end,  the  highest  ideal  which  is  developed  out  of 
race  experience,  which  belongs  not  only  to  the  present 
but  to  the  past,  which  gathers  into  itself  all  the  finest  and 
the  best  of  all  that  man  has  ever  loved  and  thought  and 
been — must  perish. 

But  the  great  end  of  the  ethical  life  is  not  simply  the 
emphasis  of  the  ethical  interests,  but  an  associated  en- 
deavor in  behalf  of  those  interests,  in  order  that  we  may 
come  to  a  higher  appreciation  than  we  can  reach  separ- 
ately and  alone.  The  Ethical  Society  therefore  stands  for 
association,  and  if  we  do  not  realize  this  necessity,  it  is 
because  we  are  still  under  the  influence  of  the  old  mon- 
astic, or  of  the  philosophical  individualistic  interpreta- 
tion of  human  existence  which  through  long  centuries 
has  been  emphasized.  These  have  been  the  dominating 
influences  on  the  attitude  of  mind  towards  the  meaning 
of  life  in  the  past.  If  you  would  know  the  truth,  go 
alone  and  think;  go  into  the  closet  or  into  the  desert,  if 
you  wish  to  reach  the  ultimate,  go  apart,  as  the  philoso- 
phers did,  and  dwell  alone  in  the  contemplation  of  your 
own  inspirations.  And  yet,  if  we  stop  a  moment  to  think 
upon  the  weakness  of  this  individualistic  ideal  we  shall 
see  how  it  has  been  corrected  by  all  the  higher  influences 
of  our  own  time.  Carlyle's  thought  of  the  hero  as  one 
who  stood  alone,  who  had  no  contact  with  his  fellows  ex- 
cept to  open  his  ideal  to  them.  We  are  coming  to  realize 
that  there  is  no  hero  who  does  not  gather  into  himself  the 
spirit  of  his  time,  and  become  the  expression  of  the  high- 
est and  best  forces  of  society.  No  thinker  can,  out  of  the 
intimacy  of  his  own  study,  bring  forth  some  new  philoso- 
phy of  life.     The  great  thinker  is  the  man  who  gathers 


WHAT  AN  ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR.         187 

into  himself  the  utmost  of  human  intelHgence,  and  who 
therefore  becomes  the  interpreter  of  the  silent  endeavor, 
the  expression  of  the  intellectual  activity  of  the  great  ma- 
jority of  men.  The  higher  life  is  always  the  life  of  clos§ 
and  intimate  human  association.  The  artist  is  no  artist 
who  does  not  gather  into  himself  the  ideals  and  aspira- 
tions of  the  age,  and  then  give  voice  to  that  which  other- 
wise were  silent.  And  so  the  moral  life  is  conditioned 
upon  association  in  behalf  of  moral  ends. 

The  Ethical  Society  then  stands  for  association,  and  for 
association  in  the  spirit  of  an  ethical  challenge.  We  have 
our  ideals  which  we  do  not  live  up  to.  If  any  one  of  us 
could  live  up  to  the  best  impulses,  thoughts  and  purposes 
which  he  has  gained  from  the  nurture  of  his  childhood, 
even  for  one  day,  the  world  would  be  a  very  different 
place  in  which  to  live.  But  we  do  not  live  up  to  these 
ideals.  These  ideals  with  which  we  began  our  early  man- 
hood are  dissipated  in  the  midst  of  a  world  of  conflict. 
The  higher  ethical  impulses  of  our  spirits  are  destroyed 
or  made  ineffective  by  the  angry  jar  and  friction  of  the 
world  about  us.  The  noblest  aspirations  fail,  and  every 
man  who  goes  out  to  meet  the  problem  of  life  is  met  with 
the  question  whether  it  is  worth  while  to  seek  to  live  up  to 
his  aspirations,  or  whether  to  conform  to  the  standards 
of  the  world  in  which  he  is  placed.  And  so  we  come  to  the 
Ethical  Society  meeting,  as  people  go  to  their  places  of 
worship,  to  renew  our  allegiance  to  these  ideals  which 
have  commended  themselves  to  us  in  the  past,  to  measure 
our  life  by  the  standard  which  we  seriously  hold,  and  to 
give  ourselves  anew  to  the  ethical  interpretation  and  ful- 
filment in  practice  of  the  higher  inspirations  which  each 
and  every  individual  life  must  at  some  time  feel.  The 
association  therefore  is  for  ethical  challenge,  but  not  for 
this  alone. 


Ii5b        WHAT  AN  ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR. 

The  Ethical  Society  is  an  association  for  ethical  illu- 
mination, for  moral  guidance.  We  know  not  what  to  do 
in  the  midst  of  the  perplexing  problems  of  modern  life. 
The  conscience  of  the  race  is  to-day  perplexed  in  the 
midst  of  conditions  which  are  largely  new.  Each  hu- 
man life  is  to-day  more  difficult  than  in  the  ages  past.  We 
come  together  in  the  Ethical  Society  for  the  study  of  the 
questions  of  the  ethical  life,  as  well  as  for  self-devotion 
to  ideals.  You  come  here,  where,  according  to  your  plan, 
speaker  follows  speaker,  each  with  some  special  study  and 
experience,  for  guidance,  and  to  gain  for  yourselves  that 
interpretation  or  vision  which  the  speaker  has  of  the 
meaning  of  human  association.  We  unite  in  the  Ethical 
Society  in  the  interest  of  a  deeper  apprehension  of  the 
spiritual  imperative,  and  of  the  way  in  which  ethical 
commandments  should  carry  us  in  our  business,  in  our 
homes,  and  in  our  relation  to  the  civic  life.  The  Ethical 
Society  is  not  only  a  meeting  place  for  challenge,  not 
only  a  place  to  which  we  shall  come  for  illumination  and 
instruction,  but  it  is  an  organization  of  people  in  behalf 
of  ethical  work.  And  one  of  the  things  which  our  day 
ought  to  realize  is  that  association  is  imperative,  that  ex- 
pression is  imperative,  if  any  effectual  work  is  to  be  done 
in  the  world  that  is  so  complex,  so  vast  that  every  indi- 
vidual effort  is  lost  in  the  great  organized  social  life.  If 
you  would  do  anything  effective  in  business,  you  usually 
ally  yourself  with  other  interests  along  your  line  of  ac- 
tivity. If  you  would  be  effective  in  the  educational  world, 
you  must  associate  yourself  with  the  greatest  movement 
in  which  you  can  find  a, place,  with  the  greatest  co-ordi- 
nated activity.  And  so,  in  the  ethical  interests  of  the  com- 
munity we  must  realize  the  limitation  of  our  own  indi- 
vidual capacity,  and  the  necessity  for  close  co-operation  in 
order  to  secure  the  best  effect. 


WHAT  AN  ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR.         189 

And  that  for  which  an  Ethical  Culture  Society  must 
exist — for  which  all  of  the  churches  really  exist — is  to  be 
found  in  the  inspiration  g-iven  to  the  individual  life.  The 
way  in  which  you  and  I  live  in  the  community,  the  way  in 
which  we  fulfil  our  duties  as  parents,  husbands  and  wives, 
neighbors,  citizens  and  workers  in  the  world,  the  way  in 
which  we  fulfil  our  responsibilities  will  determine  the 
world's  interpretation  of  the  meaning-  and  importance  of 
the  ethical  life  and  of  the  Society  for  Ethical  Culture. 

But  over  and  beyond  the  influence  of  the  Ethical  So- 
ciety upon  the  individual  life,  there  are  great  undertak- 
ings which  cannot  be  served  by  individualism,  however 
high  its  expression,  things  which  we  must  do  together. 
If  you  would  realize  the  importance  of  such  co-opera- 
tion, you  only  need  to  look  at  your  own  Society,  or  that 
of  New  York,  to  see  how  one  and  another  thing  is  accom- 
plished through  association,  which  could  not  be  wisely 
undertaken  alone.  Any  such  work  as  that  undertaken 
by  your  Society  last  winter,  in  providing  a  course  of  Sat- 
urday afternoon  lectures  on  the  Moral  Education  of  the 
Young,  in  which  you  gave  the  community  the  best  utter- 
ances that  could  be  gathered  concerning  moral  education 
in  our  public  institutions — such  an  effort  could  not  be 
fruitful  if  attempted  by  an  individual  alone,  nor  could  it 
be  so  well  and  effectively  performed  by  any  other  organi- 
zation in  this  city.  Look  at  the  splendid  Ethical  Culture 
School  at  New  York,  which  Professor  Adler  and  his  as- 
sociates have  developed,  which  is  an  object  lesson,  not 
only  to  the  city  of  New  York,  but  to  the  best  educa- 
tional interests  of  all  the  world.  People  come  from  over 
the  seas  to  study  its  workings,  to  see  the  results  in  the 
awakening  of  the  ethical  life,  and  the  attainment  of  an 
all  round  culture  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  fortunately 
privileged  to  pass  the  years  of  their  life-preparation  there. 


190        WHAT  AN  ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR. 

Then  there  are  the  philanthropic  interests  of  the  many, 
different  divisions  of  the  New  York  Society,  bringing 
life  and  healing  to  people  of  every  class  and  of  every 
race.  This,  then,  is  the  object  of  an  Ethical  Society — to 
gather  the  people  whose  little  means  and  whose  inade- 
quate time  could  not  personally  effect  any  great  object, 
any  important  leadership  towards  ethical  ends,  but  who 
by  combining  the  little  means  and  time  of  many  people 
in  a  neighborhood,  attempt  great  undertakings,  and  attain 
a  vast  accomplishment. 

The  Ethical  Society  is,  therefore,  an  association  on 
behalf  of  ethical  work,  not  merely  for  bringing  out  ideals 
of  life  by  personal  inspiration  and  contact,  but  on  behalf 
of  ethical  service  to  the  community.  For  the  ends  of 
ethical  culture  such  a  Society  must  necessarily  be  a  close 
human  association,  and  one  of  the  points  I  wish  this 
morning  to  emphasize  more  than  any  other  is  the  impera- 
tive necessity  for  a  closely  combined  association  among 
the  people  who  constitute  an  Ethical  Society.  The  Ethic- 
al Society  is  for  this  very  human  relationship  of  men  and 
women  in  the  interests  of  the  ethical  life.  In  one  or  anoth- 
er way  through  a  number  of  years  past,  it  has  been  my  con- 
stant feeling  that  there  has  been  too  little  contact  of  this 
sort.  Our  great  universities,  increasing  in  their  activity 
and  in  their  numbers,  are  gradually  limiting  the  contact 
between  professor  and  pupil,  and  decreasing  that  be- 
tween pupil  and  pupil.  In  the  great  cities  we  live  lonely 
and  isolated  lives.  In  the  midst  of  the  city  we  can  be 
more  lonely  than  out  upon  the  dreary  desert  plains.  There 
are  thousands  of  people  about  us  in  whom  we  have  no  in- 
terest, with  whom  we  have  no  association  for  moral  help. 
The  individual  is  lost  in  the  great  aggregations  of  mod- 
ern cities  and  of  industrial  activities.  An  Ethical  So- 
ciety ought  to  form  one  place  in  the  great  desert  of  lone- 


WHAT  AN  ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR.         I9I 

liness  in  which  we  can  come  into  vital  and  human  relation 
with  mankind,  in  which  we  shall  come  into  such  contact 
as  shall  be  helpful  to  each  and  all.  This  is  the  whole 
secret  of  the  Ethical  movement,  the  right  relation  of  life 
with  life,  the  interest  of  mutual  helpfulness. 

We  need  a  new  interpretation  of  marriage  relation- 
ships and  of  domestic  life.  The  older  significance  of  mar- 
riage— the  old  formula — was  to  cleave  to  each  other 
for  better  or  worse  as  chance  might  be.  The  ethical 
idea  is  not  for  better  or  worse,  but  that  husband  and  wife 
take  each  other  to  make  the  worse  good,  to  make  the 
good  better,  and  to  make  the  better  best.  The  true  mar- 
riage is  an  ethical  co-operation,  each  seeking  to  bring  out 
the  highest  and  best  in  the  life  of  the  one  he  or  she  most 
loves.  This  is  the  true  meaning  of  marital  responsibility, 
which  modern  conditions  are  causing  to  be  interpreted  in 
terms  of  material  economy.  The  responsibility  of  the 
parent  as  to  the  child,  as  commonly  viewed,  is  that  it 
shall  be  well  taught,  clothed,  fed  and  started  in  life.  But 
the  ethical  responsibility  is  not  only  to  clothe,  feed,  edu- 
cate, but  to  bring  out  the  latent  possibility  not  only  of  in- 
tellectual and  physical  well  being,  but  of  moral  and  spir- 
itual life,  to  develop  in  the  child  all  that  is  latent  in  its 
spirit.  So  in  friendship:  true  friends  are  not  those  who 
merely  enjoy  each  other's  society  from  year  to  year,  who 
come  into  relationship  with  each  other  in  pleasant  so- 
cial intercourse,  but  is  realized  where  each  strives  to  bring 
out  the  best  that  is  in  the  other's  spirit,  so  far  as  one  life 
may  influence  and  affect  the  other.  And  this  is  the  true 
meaning  of  an  Ethical  Society, — an  association  of  peo- 
ple banded  together  for  mutual  moral  help  in  character- 
building — in  which  the  members  come  into  personal  hu- 
man relationship.  If  we  could  only  devise  methods  by 
which,  instead  of  constant  instruction,  which  often  falls 


192         WHAT  AN   ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR. 

upon  dull  and  deaf  ears,  we  niig-ht  incite  and  stimulate 
each  other  to  bring  out.  each  for  the  other's  good,  the 
best  and  highest !  But  this  whole  thought  rests  back  upon 
a  new  apprehension  of  the  meaning  of  human  life. 

The  American  impulse,  so  strong  all  over  our  great 
land,  is  to  get  out  of  the  class  in  which  we  have  been 
placed  by  the  fortune  of  birth,  and  to  get  into  some 
higher  class,  that  of  those  better  favored  than  we  are. 
This  eager  desire  to  get  on  in  life,  which  is  so  charac- 
teristic and  so  fatal  in  our  civilization,  rests  upon  a  false 
perspective,  upon  an  unethical  interpretation  of  human 
relationships ;  for  every  human  life,  because  it  is  a  human 
life,  whatever  its  degree  of  education  and  its  position  in 
the  w^orld,  whatever  its  capacity  and  power,  has  its  con- 
tribution to  make  to  every  other  human  life.  The  one  thing 
which  the  social  settlement  work  has  most  clearly  re- 
vealed is  the  fact  that  those  who  go  to  work  among  the 
unfavored  classes  get  far  more  than  they  give.  Men  in 
the  midst  of  suffering  and  distress,  surrounded  by  unfa- 
vorable conditions,  who  have  learned  what  it  is  to  endure 
hardness,  to  resist  temptation,  to  stand  upright  with  the 
dreadful  fact  of  to-morrow's  needs  pressing  heavily 
upon  them  in  to-day's  activity,  because  they  have  come 
thus  into  contact  with  an  essential  experience  of  human 
life,  are  able  to  speak  words  which  the  most  favored  needs 
to  hear.  So  the  Ethical  Society,  if  true  to  its  foundation 
principle  of  gathering  together  people,  regardless  of  edu- 
cation and  station,  into  one  fraternity,  is  in  a  position  to 
help  on  the  enrichment  and  enlargement  of  human  char- 
acter through  moral  fraternity,  as  no  other  organization 
can  possibly  do. 

The  ethical  association,  then,  is  in  behalf  of  co-operative 
character-building,  close  human  personal  relationship  be- 
tween member  and  member,  not  simply  for  the  pleasant 


WHAT  AN  ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR.         1 93 

enjoyment  of  a  social  hour,  but  for  ethical  ends,  that 
each  may  seek  to  bring  out  in  the  other  the  best  that  is 
latent  there.  An  ethical  association,  however,  is  not  true 
to  its  name  or  purpose  when  it  does  not  provide  inspira- 
tion and  opportunity  for  those  who  would  do  personal 
work  and  render  help  to  the  lives  of  those  with  whom 
they  come  in  contact.  I  am  depressed  by  the  enormous 
spectacle  of  wasted  human  lives.  No  one  can  study  the 
social  conditions  of  our  time  without  being  depressed  with 
the  spectacle.  There  are  thousands  of  our  young  men, 
and  men  who  are  no  longer  young,  going  down  in  ethical 
and  spiritual  decay.  We  are  depressed  when  we  read  of 
80,000  men  falling  on  the  battlefields  of  Manchuria,  and 
we  ought  to  be  depressed ;  the  heart  of  humanity  ought  to 
break  beneath  the  strain  of  sympathy  for  our  brothers 
who  are  going  down  to  death.  But  we  overlook  the  fact 
that  in  every  one  of  our  great  cities  an  equal  number  of 
men  are  going  down  to  death  without  the  shedding  of 
blood  upon  a  battlefield.  Professor  Jordan,  some  years 
ago,  told  in  the  Forum  his  experiences  while  coming 
across  the  continent  on  a  slow  train  which  stopped  at 
nearly  every  station.  There  were  groups  of  young  men 
all  along  the  road,  idling  and  loitering,  drifting  into  ways 
of  vice  and  sin,  with  no  thought  of  life's  duties,  going 
down  into  intellectual  and  spiritual  decay.  Walk  out 
upon  the  streets  of  Philadelphia  any  evening,  and  you 
will  see  throngs  of  young  people  going  to  the  devil,  as 
they  say  in  New  York,  because  they  have  nowhere  else  to 
go  to.  Look  into  every  section  of  the  community  and 
you  will  find  uninspired,  unillumined  lives  of  men  and 
women. 

I  cannot  see  how  an  Ethical  Society  with  its  aims  can 
fail  to  become  an  animating  power  in  the  regenerating 
work  of  humanity.     And  if  it  is  true  to  its  ideals,  the 


194        WHAT  AN  ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR. 

Ethical  Society  must  mean  inspiration  to  every  one  of 
its  members  to  go  out  into  the  highways  and  byways,  to 
take  by  the  hand  the  wayward  and  erring^,  to  help  those 
who  are  falling  by  the  wayside  because  of  the  lack  of  a 
haven,  and  bring  them  to  a  place  where  a  helpful  human 
interest  may  illuminate  them  and  awaken  them  to  a  sense 
of  their  uselessness  both  to  themself  and  to  the  com- 
munity, The  Ethical  Society  ought  to  be  an  important 
regenerative  force  in  every  community,  seeking  to  bring 
in  the  erring;  not  a  fellowship  for  the  mere  sake  of  fel- 
lowship, not  seeking  to  build  up  its  organization  if  you 
please,  merely  by  bringing  people  into  membership,  but 
to  bring  them  under  influences  which  will  illuminate  them 
and  make  them  better  men  and  women.  If  true  to  its 
mission,  then,  the  Ethical  Society  is  for  the  work  of  so- 
cial redemption,  for  the  inspiration  of  every  member  to 
loyal  human  service,  not  simply  in  giving  of  alms,  but  in 
bestowing  that  higher  alms  which  consists  in  being  a  true 
friend. 

We  come  to  the  morning  lectures  not  merely  to  hear 
what  the  lecturer  may  say,  not  to  meet  our  friends  and 
those  with  a  kindred  interest,  not  this  alone — but  we 
come  upon  the  day  of  rest  and  thought  that  in  one  place 
we  may  meet  face  to  face  the  ideal,  the  ideal  which  has 
been  born  out  of  the  ages  of  human  life,  nurtured  by  the 
noble  example  of  all  the  saints  and  saviors,  prophets  and 
martyrs  who  have  gone  before,  nurtured  by  every  cur- 
rent of  religious  life  since  the  world  began — each  nation 
with  "its  message  from  on  high,  each  the  Messiah  of 
some  central  thought  for  the  fulfilment  and  delight  of 
man."  We  come  here  that  we  may  meet  that  ideal  which 
has  been  enriched  by  the  sacrifice  and  earnest  toil  of  all 
peoples  in  all  time.  The  ideal  we  hold  may  perhaps  have 
a  different  interpretation   for  every  one  of  us.     In  its 


WHAT  AN  ETHICAL  CULTURE  SOCIETY  IS  FOR.         I95 

formless  glow  we  shall  each  see  the  face  which  is  to 
us  most  dear,  which  through  education,  association  and 
love  has  been  impressed  upon  our  consciousness.  One 
will  see  there  the  face  of  the  man  of  Galilee,  another  the 
face  of  Moses  or  Isaiah,  another  Buddha  or  Mohammed, 
another  Knox  or  Calvin  or  Emerson.  Most  of  us  will 
probably  see  the  face  of  a  sainted  mother,  or  some  dear 
friend  who  has  been  closer  to  us  than  a  mother;  but  the 
lineaments  which  we  shall  each  discover  for  ourselves 
will  be  dependent  upon  our  point  of  view,  and  the  me- 
dium through  which  we  look  is  secondary  to  the  fact  that 
we  shall  look  upon  the  ideal — the  highest  aspiration,  the 
deepest  conception  of  human  life  which  the  ages  have 
developed — its  meaning  and  its  mission.  The  Ethical  So- 
ciety is  an  association  for  the  preservation  of  the  ideal,  to 
gather  it  from  all  the  factors  of  human  richness,  and  to 
illuminate  that  ideal  with  a  new  reality  and  allegiance, 
and  to  bring  it  to  bear  upon  the  question  of  individual  ac- 
tivity and  the  right  attitude  of  men  and  women  in  all  the 
relations  of  life.    It  is  the  home  of  the  ideal. 

That  which  is  significant  in  every  religion  is  not  its 
dogma,  but  its  vision;  not  its  principles,  but  its  inspira- 
tions; not  its  beliefs,  but  its  undertakings.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  the  ideal,  inspirations,  which  surpass  the  power 
of  utterance  in  words  but  which  lead  us  ever  onward  to 
growth  and  fulfilment,  shall  more  and  more  be  infused 
into  the  practical  deeds  of  every  day,  to  transform  them 
into  the  image  of  the  ideal,  and  to  fulfil  them  in  terms  of 
vital  human  experience.  It  is  for  such  things  as  these 
that  the  Ethical  Society  exists.  It  is  these  things  that 
we  individually  need,  that  the  world  needs,  and  such 
things  as  these  can  be  supplied  by  the  Ethical  Society  as 
by  no  other  human  association. 


THE    MORAL    INSTRUCTION    MOVE- 
MENT   ABROAD 

[Some  information  regarding  the  moral  instruction 
movement  abroad,  compiled  from  printed  documents  by 
a  member  of  the  Philadelphia  Ethical  Society  and  read  at 
its  recent   (twenty-second)    annual  meeting.] 

The  Moral  Instruction  League  in  E)igla)id  was  found- 
ed in  1897.  Its  object  is  to  introduce  systematic  non-theo- 
logical moral  instruction  into  all  schools,  and  to  make  the 
fomiation  of  character  the  chief  aim  of  school  life.  It 
has  issued  many  leaflets  and  pamphlets.  It  has  published 
a  Graduated  Syllabus  of  Moral  Instruction  for  Elemen- 
tary Schools.  It  has  presented  a  petition  to  the  Board  of 
Education  signed  by  members  of  the  Lords  and  Com- 
mons, university  professors  and  other  representative  men, 
asking  the  Board  to  make  provision  for  lessons  in  personal 
and  civic  duties.  It  gives  twice  a  month,  in  the  League's 
Rooms,  specimen  lessons  of  Moral  Instruction  by  capa- 
ble teachers,  before  audiences  of  educational  experts  and 
the  general  public.  It  is  collecting  material  as  illustrative 
information  under  the  several  headings  of  its  Graduated 
Syllabus.  It  publishes  and  recommends,  several  moral 
text-books.  It  is  influencing  Educational  Authorities  all 
over  the  country — moral  instruction  being  given  in  more 
than  3,000  public  schools  to  about  1,000,000  children.  It 
is  communicating  with  all  the  head  teachers  and  all  the 
Training  Colleges  in  the  land.  It  intends  to,  or  has  al- 
ready, approached  the  new  Government  to  press  on  it  the 
need  of  introducing  Moral  Instruction  as  a  regular  sub- 
ject into  all  public  schools — the  religious  instruction  given 
having  proved  morallv  ineffective — twenty-seven  educa- 
tional authorities,  in  spite  of  an  overcrowded  curriculum, 
having  recently  found  it  necessary  to  make  additional 
provision  for  moral  instruction  of  a  systematic  kind. 

196 


MORAL  INSTRUCTION  MOVEMENT  ABROAD.  I97 

In  several  of  the  British  Colonies — in  Nova  Scotia, 
Manitoba,  Jamaica,  Queensland  and  South  Australia,  de- 
finite instruction  is  given  in  morals  and  good  manners. 

In  India  an  official  Education  Circular  has  been  issued 
(in  Bengal)  which  states  that  teachers  must  aim  at  de- 
veloping moral  character  by  stories  and  examples  of  fa- 
mous men,  in  their  text-books,  and  by  the  example  of  the 
teacher;  that  character  is  shaped  by  discipline,  habits  of 
punctuality,  obedience,  regularity,  method,  and  truthful- 
ness, and  the  virtues  of  generosity,  self-control,  self-sac- 
rifice, respect  to  superiors,  tenderness  to  animals,  and 
compassion  for  the  poor  and  aged. 

In  Germany  the  League  for  secular  education  and  moral 
instruction,  possessing  a  membership  of  over  400  per- 
sons, is  setting  up  a  publishing  house  at  considerable  cost, 
for  the  purpose  of  encouraging  and  facilitating  the  pro- 
duction of  books  on  moral  instruction. 

In  Austria  a  Moral  Instruction  League  is  in  contem- 
plation. The  Austrian  Board  of  Education  has  just  is- 
sued new  regulations  for  schools  which  are  conceived  in 
an  ethical  spirit,  and  show  in  detail  the  supreme  import- 
ance of  teaching  to  the  children  the  leading  virtues. 

In  Holland,  steps  have  also  been  taken  toward  the  for- 
mation of  a  Moral  Instruction  League,  and  to  this  end 
several  meetings  have  taken  place  at  The  Hague. 

In  Hungary,  it  is  reported  there  is  the  possibility  of 
forming  a  Moral  Instruction  League.  Moral  instruction 
in  Hungary  is  supposed  to  be  given  in  all  schools,  but  it 
forms  only  a  part,  and  a  very  small  part,  of  the  denomina- 
tional instruction  given  by  priests  and  rabbis. 

In  the  schools  of  Italy,  Moral  Instruction  has  been  for 
some  time  a  separate  regular  subject. 

In  France,  the  impulse  given  in  recent  years  to  instruc- 
tion in  morals  or  practical  ethics  is  most  significant.  The 
subject  there  is  not  new ;  moral  instruction  is  found  in 
school  programs  antedating  the  Republic  but  always  in 
relation  to  religion.  In  1882  the  State  schools  were  made 
strictly  secular,  morals  and  civics  being  placed  at  the  head 
of  the  prescribed  studies.  For  a  while  the  scientific  spirit 
dominated.     But  within  the  past  few  years  the  primary 


198  MORAL  INSTRUCTION  MOVEMENT  ABROAD. 

school  of  France  has  undergone  a  subtle  transformation. 
The  scientific  spirit  has  given  way  to  the  ethical  spirit. 
The  teaching  of  practical  morals  has  become  live  and  ef- 
fective; and  is  intended  to  complete  and  ennoble  all  the 
other  instruction  of  the  school.  While  each  of  the  other 
branches  tends  to  develop  a  special  order  of  aptitudes 
or  some  kind  useful  knowledge — this  study  aims  to  de- 
velop the  man  himself. 

In  Japan,  for  nearly  forty  years  past^they  have  been 
excluding  from  the  schools  all  priestly  influence.  The 
government  has  introduced  moral  instruction  into  all  the 
schools  since  1868,  and  attaches  especial  importance  to 
such  instruction  being  carried  out.  The  greatest  value  is 
placed  on  ethical  influence  permeating  all  classes  of  the 
people,  as  the  surest  guarantee  for  a  sound  further  devel- 
opment. An  eight-volume  work  dealing  with  moral  in- 
struction has  been  since  1903  in  use  in  all  the  schools  of 
Japan — of  elementary  schools  alone  there  are  over  27,000. 
In  the  lowest  grades,  text-books  in  moral  instruction  are 
not  used.  The  children  are  interested  in  moral  conduct 
by  means  of  object-lessons.  Even  in  the  higher  classes, 
object  lessons  in  morals  are  used.  The  examples  of  fa- 
mous men,  and  the  occurrences  of  daily  life.  The  duties 
succeed  one  another  proceeding  from  the  family  to  the 
school,  and  from  the  school  to  the  duties  of  the  citizen. 
In  the  higher  classes,  the  various  ethical  systems  are  set 
forth.  Moral  instruction  in  Japan  is  not  anti-religious, 
but  has  for  its  sole  object  the  strengthening  of  the  ethical 
consciousness.  The  policy  pursued  by  the  Japanese  au- 
thorities is  almost  identical  with  the  aim  of  the  Moral  In- 
struction League  of  England. 


A  NEW  ETHICAL  YEAR  BOOK 


A  SENTIMENT  IN  VERSE  FOR  EVERY  DAY  JN 
THE  YEAR.    Compiled  by  Walter  L.  Sheldon. 

"The  collection  is  designed  for  those  who  would  like  to 

have  Scriptures  in  verse The  art  of  poetry,  like 

that  of  music,  speaks  for  the  sentiments  natural  to  the  hu- 
man soul." — From  Prefatory  Note. 

"For  thirty  years  Mr.  Sheldon  has  gleaned  from  the  great  poets 
their  noblest  expression  of  the  ethical  life,  and  has  embodied  the  result 
of  this  long  labor  of  love  In  this  volume.  He  has  used  rare  discrimina- 
tion in  selecting  passages  that  ring  strong  and  true  with  brave,  cheerful, 
elevating  thought.  There  is  an  uplifting  sentiment  offered  for  each  day 
in  the  year.  Apart  from  the  enjoyment  of  the  literary  excellence  of  the 
quotations,  no  thoughtful,  aspiring  person  could  absorb  the  thousand- 
souled  message  of  this  assemblage  of  authors  without  gaining  strength 
and  fortitude  of  spirit  for  the  battle  of  life." — W.  H.  S.  in  The  Public. 

Half  Cloth,  50  cents ;  five  copies  to  one  address  $2.00. 


MISCELLANEOUS    BOOKS 

The  Children's  Book  of  Moral  Lessons.  By  E.  J.  Gould. 
Three  series.    Bound  in  Cloth,  75  cents  each. 

The  Message  of  Man.  Ethical  Scriptures  Compiled  by 
Stanton  Coit.    340  pages.    Cloth,  75  cents;  Leather,  $1.00. 

Is  Life  Worth  Living?  By  William  James.  Cloth,  35 
cents. 

Neighborhood  Guilds:  An  Insti-ument  of  Social  Reform. 
By  Stanton  Coit.     150  pages,  $1.00. 

Philanthropy  and  Social  Progress.  By  Jane  Addams, 
Robert  A.  Woods,  J.  0.  S.  Huntington,  TVanklin  H.  Gid- 
dings,  and  Bernard  Bosonquet     268  pages.    $1.00. 

ETHICAL  ADDRESSES,  1415  Locust  Street,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 


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